The most important solar power converter performance parameter is power conversion efficiency. The cost of a photovoltaic power system using power converters with conversion efficiencies of 97% verses 98% translates to an additional 1% in total system costs with respect to the cost of energy over the lifetime of the system. In addition, a 97% verses 98% efficient power converter would require a cooling system with 50% more heat removal capacity making it larger, heavier and significantly more expensive. This burden is an important consideration in state-of-the-art multi-megawatt system designs that use a number of smaller distributed DC-to-AC power converters cooled only by natural convection.